COMPUTER WOES CONTINUE TO PLAGUE INS

As if all of the heat the INS has been enduring from the Congress, the media and an angry public are not enough (much like its sister agency the Internal Revenue Service), a number of serious computer problems have been plaguing the agency of late.

Last month, the INS finally issued 60,000 new I-551 “green cards” that contain dozens of security features. Only one machine in the country, located at the INS Vermont Service, is currently processing the cards and quality control problems have been an issue holding up production. The California Service Center used to produce the cards as well but their machine has been taken down to be retrofitted to produce the new border crossing cards.

The INS’ Office of Naturalization Operations reports software problems with its new Application Service Center (“ASC”) fingerprint scheduling modules. The software is used to schedule fingerprinting for both naturalization and green card application cases since INS fingerprinting is now required in these cases (previously, outside government agencies and organizations performed this function). According to the American Immigration Lawyers Association, there is no central reservation capacity and no way for any INS office to know how many slots are open at the ASCs. Until this problem is dealt with, the INS must manually override the software and permit green card applicants to be scheduled at the ASC. Expedite requests must also be dealt with through a manual override. Until the software glitch is corrected, each INS office and ASC office will have a designated person responsible for coordinating the fingerprinting schedule by telephone.

It has also become apparent that the INS regional service centers have no way to schedule fingerprint appointments at the ASCs and I-485 Adjustment of Status and naturalization cases filed directly with the service centers cannot be processed. The problem is that the service centers could have a dozen or more ASCs in their jurisdiction. AILA compares the problems to that of booking seats on an airline flight. The service centers are booking ASC fingerprint appointments at the same time as the local INS offices are, but neither has any way to know how many applicants have already been booked during a particular week. Since there are only a certain number of appointment slots that are available, “overbooking” is the end result. Until a scheduling system is in place, the INS service centers are not booking fingerprint appointments.

The Texas Service Center had a computer crash in March that caused the malfunctioning of the automated telephone system used to check the status of cases filed at there. One result has been unusually long processing times for most types of cases. Persons with actual fee receipts received messages that indicated they had invalid case numbers. Other cases were reported being in the middle of processing even though they had been approved for quite some time. Texas claims to have the problem solved.

But a much bigger problem at the Texas Service Center was revealed later in April. The TSC admitted to having found a volume of more than 5,000 I-485 adjustment of status cases that were misidentified in a filing room. The cases have been sitting at the TSC for more than nine months with no action. The Texas Service Center, which claims to process I-485 cases in five to six months, now promises to work on these lost cases aggressively to get them finished. The TSC has set up special fax number for attorneys handling adjustment cases that have been pending for more than 9 months. Attorneys with cases fitting this profile can e-mail me at gsiskind@visalaw.com for the number. If you are not an attorney, please do not send a request for the number as we will not be able to provide it to you.

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